Slashchuk A. English Idioms as a Way of Semantization of Kinesic Means of Nonverbal Communication

The thesis deals with the investigation of theoretical and methodological, scientific and applied principles of correlation of verbal and nonverbal components of communication, namely with the detection and description of English phraseological units as a way of semantization of kinesic means of nonverbal communication. The basic theoretical principles of the modern interpretation of nonverbal means of communication have been described. The methodology of analysis of gestural phraseological units has been devised. It has been specified the notion of kinesics and defined its main components (gestures, mimics, postures). Thus kinesics as a science, which is a part of nonverbal semiotics and in the narrow meaning is its central notion, is defined as a complex of human body movements which are perceived visually, have communicatively meaningful information from a point of view of at least one member of a communicative process and are interpreted according to the established conventional signs and norms of behavior in society. The author's semiotic classification of gestures as the main implementators of kinesic behaviour has been introduced. The communicative (symbolic) and noncommunicative (nonsymbolic) gestures have been singled out. Communicative gestures (i.e. emblematic, iconic, expressive, kinetogrammic) being represented by English phraseological units have defined the object of the research paper. It has been characterized the peculiarities of representation of kinesic elements by verbal signs. Traditionally, the elements of kinesic behavior can be rendered in language by lexical unit, free word combination and phraseological unit. It has been disclosed that the symbolic nature of phraseological units is coordinated with the symbolic images of gestures. Thus it has been represented the determination of gestural phraseological unit as the nominative element of kinesic movement and received objective data about the capacity of gestural phraseological units to express a close connection to the imaginary gestures. It has been disclosed and analysed 864 English phraseological units which are the direct nominations of gestures, their semantic representation, and oblique nominations which are indirectly related to meaningful corporal positions or movements. The research of semantic aspects of the linguistic expression of gestures enabled to form the classification of correlation of verbal representation of gestures and their meanings.